Game manuals decorate with fun illustrations of the game. I once stole a game manual from Blockbuster because they had a colored version of the Yoshi’s Island manual. I swapped it with my black-and-white version and got away with it. Heeheehee….

The D-Pad.. 🙂 Oh how it felt under my young thumb.. How horrible most dpads are now.. The 360’s is by far the worst. Wiimote is OK, but it wears easily. The GC was a joke… lol The DS line was pretty close though.

Cartridges. Loved them. For some reason, opening the cardboard box and pulling out a huge hunk of plastic was a better experience than popping a disc out of the case. Specifically with the N64, I loved how some games felt heavier than others, and you literally felt like there was more game packed into it.

@Stan
I completely agree with that too. My favorite game manual by far is the Pokemon Red, Blue and Yellow instructions. The design and the way they introduced Pokemon to you as if you were a real trainer receiving the handbook was extraordinary. You never see that whimsical style anymore

I miss the fast loading times. I also, like Fuzz, miss the instant start-up of games. I don’t like that you have to go through channels, then select a game, and finally start the game just to start playing. I believe games should start automatically by default in all systems.

I really miss the LACK of online gaming. Seriously! I LOVED getting some guys together to play Goldeneye, Mario Kart 64, Street Fighter II, Starfox 64, etc. in the SAME ROOM! You had to commit to spending the time together, rather than logging on and hoping guys on your friends list were online at the same time as you. Razzing each other and getting excited about huge moments were so much more exciting than just hearing somebody’s voice on your headset…

Online is cool in many ways, but I feel it’s largely killed the greatness that is LIVE multiplayer experiences.

I would definately say the top of the line Graphics. Wii should have been HD. Even if it was still underpowered compared to the other HD consoles it probably wouldn’t have gotten into so much bad shape at the end of its life. Something that will probably happen to the Wii U again with Nintendo not really pushing the boundaries with graphics capability.

Wow… wish I owned one of the NES-101 systems shown in the article pic. Beautiful.

What do I miss most? Instant gaming with no loading times. The games weren’t always great, and anyone who ignores the massive piles of NES shovelware while talking about “Nintendo’s Seal of Quality” are fooling themselves… but it never took more than a couple of minutes to find out if a game was something worth coming back to play again.

A “normal” control interface. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind motion controllers and touch screens and the like. But I kind of miss the ability to sit down and play a game without any of the extra gimmicks. Gamecube controller options are always fantastic! <3